What do you get when you combine a love of the natural world with a family who love to play games together? Well, for one young curious mind, that lead to the creation of a card game that has the potential to educate, inspire and change the world, one household at a time. SOS: Save Our Species.
The Mann/Taylor family have always had a strong passion for nature, be that as custodians of beautiful gardens, spending time travelling the world or in their fondness for water sports and love of the sea. Growing up in that environment, Jackson was able to see first-hand both the beauty and the danger the animals of these incredible habitats are in, and he wanted to make a change.
More and more young people are realising that they don’t have to ‘grow up’ to make a difference, that their voices are powerful and with the right support they can make a real impact on the problems around them. Jackson’s idea was a simple one… let families have fun while learning more about rare species and the habitats they live in, because the more we know and understand, the more we all want to help and protect.
The WWF agreed that the game was a fantastic opportunity to influence hearts and minds, and lent their support to the Kickstarter which is now fully funded. Not only will this game raise awareness, but 100% of the profits from retails sales will be donated to conservation charities. If that isn’t a project to get behind I don’t know what is!
We sat down with the young inventor recently to get his perspective of the incredible journey so far of SOS: Save Our Species.
What gave you the idea for the game?
I’ve always loved wildlife and was lucky enough to go to Costa Rica when I was 12. We were seeing lots of amazing wildlife, as well as playing card games as a family almost every day. So, I thought that creating our own card game would be super fun, and that if people were as engaged with wildlife card games as they are with football cards or Pokémon cards, then that would be a huge positive change.
What was the hardest part about creating the game?
We had to play the game hundreds of times to get it to where it is now – even after you have worked out how the gameplay works, you need to decide the proportions of the different cards to try and make the game as exciting as possible, and also create the amount of luck/unpredictability that you want.
What do you want to achieve via the game?
I want to raise money for WWF and other conservation charities, and I also want kids to engage with and learn about endangered species and their threats. Equally importantly, I want to create a super fun card game for people to play.
What have you learnt through this process?
How important prototyping is – we have gone through multiple versions of SOS, and each time it gets better. The most common way we improved it was by making it simpler to understand and play, whilst still keeping the same core gameplay.
What was it like to work with an organisation like WWF?
Working with WWF can be tricky as they have a very well-known global brand, so there are strict rules about how it can be used. But we’ve met some really nice, helpful people, dedicated to wildlife conservation. Outside of WWF we’ve also had lots of different experts giving up their time for us and giving us invaluable advice.
Do you have other ideas you’d like to explore to help protect animals and their natural habitats?
SOS has the potential to create hundreds of different versions (like Monopoly or Top Trumps). For example, the UK Edition, the Costa Rica Edition, the Birds Version… We could also make expansions to add on to the game to make it more complex, or have more players, like the invasive species expansion, or the scavenger expansion.
What advice would you give to other young people with an idea for a game?
Once you come up with an original idea, keep playing it until it gradually gets better and more fun. But if an idea isn’t working, you should try and come up with a new starting point for your game, because to make a great game you need a great idea – so don’t be afraid to start over if it didn’t work out. Even if you have to scrap an idea for a game, you still would have learnt something in the process
